Friday, June 08, 2007

Save the Keeler post office

The Los Angeles Times featured Postmaster Nylia Swanson of Keeler, California in an article about how she sells stamps to people outside the rural community as part of an effort to keep the town's post office from closing.

Reporter John M. Glionna writes, "At 72, Swanson is waging a homespun one-woman campaign to keep her office open and her tiny town on the map. Mixing the folksy forthrightness of a cold-calling saleswoman with the heartstrings tug of a Jerry Lewis telethon, she promotes the Keeler post office (ZIP Code 93530) as the spot for one-stop mail shopping."

According to Glionna, "Once Swanson has corralled her customers, she keeps them in the fold with folksy seasonal fliers. Why wait in line at your crazy-crowded local post office, she asks, when you can buy your stamps stress-free from her? All orders to the Keeler post office, she pledges, will be returned by priority mail the same day they are received."

The article goes on to say, "Still, Swanson isn't sure how much longer she can stave off the inevitable. Her worst enemy, she says, is the metered mail big firms use instead of stamps."

To read the entire article, click here.
Bookmark and Share
posted by Don Schilling at 12:01 AM